Illinois Vaccine Law Targets Parents Who Seek Medical Choice

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This morning, the Chicago Tribune posted an article citing that the war against the anti-vaccination movement is “being won,” for all intents and purposes, based on an Illinois vaccine mandate which went into effect last year after being passed in 2015. The law drastically limits vaccine opt-outs to only “clear cut” religious reasons.

The pro-vaccine movement celebrated the new law’s effect in the article.

Parents with clear-cut religious objections can still opt to send their kids to school without vaccines, as long as they’re willing to meet with a health care provider and receive information about vaccine benefits.

But parents who oppose vaccines as unnecessary or dangerous are on shaky ground under a 2015 law that does not recognize philosophical objections.

“I definitely think it’s making things more difficult for them,” said Alexandra Eidenberg, a Wilmette activist and mother of four who helped write the 2015 law.

“That was the intention, and I’m glad.”

The Illinois law, which went into full effect last year, reflects a broader development in the vaccine wars. Supporters of childhood vaccines are turning to an array of relatively restrained measures that create pressure — legal, medical and even social — on parents who don’t want to vaccinate their school-age children.